Monday, December 12, 2005

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Jeanine Pirro, one the state's highest-profile district attorneys, won't immediately end her campaign to challenge Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2006 even if GOP leaders ask her to, a top aide said Sunday.

"The rumors and speculation that Jeanine Pirro is dropping out of the Senate race tomorrow are false," said Pirro campaign spokeswoman Andrea Tantaros.

Tantaros refused to comment on what might ultimately happen with the Republican's struggling campaign.

GOP chairmen from counties across the state are scheduled to meet Monday in Albany and could endorse a request from the top Republican in the state Senate that Pirro drop her U.S. Senate bid and run for state attorney general instead.

The New York Post, quoting unidentified Republicans, said Pirro didn't want to bail out yet because fundraising was easier as a Clinton opponent than as a candidate for state attorney general. Tantaros disputed the report, saying that was not driving the Westchester County district attorney's continued Senate campaign.

I hadn't considered that Pirro might be using the opportunity to build up a war chest (I got a solicitation from Hillary this weekend that should have clued me in...imagine, here's someone who should win in a walk against any opponent the GOP can throw up against her and has a rumoured 10:1 fund raising advantage over Pirro (Golisano may be the only opponent who can match her funding, and that's his own money), and she's looking for nickle-and-dime money (altho I did get a spiffy yard sign and a bumper sticker).

And then it hit me: she can save money for her Presidential bid in 2008.

But back to the GOP. The county leader meeting today should be interesting, and I've got a wacky prediction to make:

Jeannine Pirro will step aside tomorrow to run for AG. William Weld will run for Governor. Tom Golisano will challenge Hillary for the Senate.

ALBANY - If Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi is wondering how difficult it would be to garner support for his possible bid to become governor next year, all he has to do is look to the county next door.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy was one of five Democratic county executives throughout the state who announced yesterday they will endorse Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in his run for governor.

Interesting turn of events, one designed to knock Suozzi and his nascent (but methodical) political machine out of the governor's race.

So I'm going to make yet another bold prediction here: Suozzi will challenge Peter King (the biggest bastard Bushevik in New York State anyway, and that says a lot from a state that's produced George Pataki and Rudy Giuliani) for Congress next year.

"Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things...every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor." -- Matt Santos, The West Wing